They had sighted numerous craft coming from or heading toward Colon, so that this section of the sea differed in many respects from the locality where their first effort had been carried out. Here, in the neighborhood of this island, a steamship had gone down some years back, which boat was said to have on board a considerable amount of gold, locked in the safe.
The crew and passengers had deserted their sinking vessel just in time to see her pitch headlong into the maw of the sea. They had luckily managed to reach the island, and in due time were taken off by a passing vessel.
Several attempts to locate the sunken steamer had resulted in failure; and so far as was known her treasure chest had never been looted. It was in the hope of locating this wreck and salvaging her safe with its valuable contents that now engaged the attention of the daring adventurers with whom our young friends had joined fortunes.
All that was known about that night of storm had come from the accounts published in the papers of that time. These were very vague, save that they agreed the steamer was being carried toward the island from the northeast when her sinking condition caused crew and passengers to take to the boats; and that she went down in many fathoms of water long before reaching the reefs that partly protected the island from the storm’s fury.
This at least was enough to give Captain Shooks his cue. He must start his investigation on the northeast side of the island, scouring the bottom of the sea over an increasingly wide area, until he had either found the object of his search or else felt compelled to give it up as a bad job.
So once again the boys found themselves looking out at masses of vegetation covering the deep sea valleys. Jack caught many a novel picture of amazing spectacles that must later on thrill all those who were interested in this new and heretofore untried field of discovery. They saw such creatures as they had never dreamed existed; all sorts of curious formations that seemed to possess life, for they fought one another furiously, and rubbed their queer snouts against the glass of the bull’s-eye observation windows, as though consumed with a horrible curiosity to scrape an acquaintance with the inmates of this visiting boat.
For three hours the search went on. So far it was without avail, and the skipper finally came up so as to get his bearings afresh, when he would try again. He did not believe in such a thing as failure, until every artifice imaginable had been first of all exhausted.
After going down again in a fresh spot luck came their way. The intense white glow of the searchlight shooting ahead showed them the grotesque outlines of a vessel. Yes, and it was undoubtedly a sunken steamship in the bargain, so that the chances seemed to be they had finally run across the object of their submarine search.
Once this was made certain, and they again arose to the surface. But the sea was running too strong just then to allow of making a float, and starting operations as before. Nothing remained but to bide their time; so after marking the spot with a buoy, they steamed nearer the shore, and the boys, taking the collapsible, landed, meaning to amuse themselves for a spell, hunt shells, see if there were all the promises of a fair and calm day on the morrow that navigators could wish; and it was with hope beating high in their hearts that they partook of supper, and afterwards sought their bunks.
Morning proved that the captain had been a good weather prophet, for, as the sun rose, it showed a sea almost as quiet as a mill pond. Only the long swells washed up on the little shell beach of the island with a murmurous complaint, as though voicing the voices of those who in centuries past and gone had found a grave beneath these same sub-tropical seas.